barcelona conference

The Barcelona Conference is sometimes referred to by European sources as Common Strategy on the Mediterranean Region. Participants were the 15 EU countries, and 12 other countries of the Mediterranean, including the Middle East, North Africa and the island nations of Malta and Cyprus. The United States reportedly requested participant status, but was only granted observer status.

Role

The Barcelona Process (also known as the Barcelona Treaty or the Barcelona Declaration), developed by the Conference over its successive annual meetings, is a set of goals designed to lead to a free trade zone in the Middle East by 2010. Its inital agenda was the following:

Battling religious fundamentalism worldwide;
Achieving mutually satisfactory trading terms for the region's partners, the "region" consisting of the countries that participated;
Eliminating or greatly reducing United States presence in the Mediterranean.

Solana opened the initial 1995 conference with a speech to the participant nations, announcing that they were brought together to straighten out the "clash of civilizations" and misunderstandings between them, many of which date back to the First Crusade of November 27, 1095. Solana said it "was auspicious" that they had convened on the 900th anniversary of that date. At the conclusion of the first conference, at which the Barcelona Treaty was drawn up among the 27 country coalition, Javier Solana was credited with the remarkable diplomatic accomplishment. In March, 2004 the stakes on the Barcelona Process distinctly rose as the European Union, speaking in Washington, D.C. through its then troika, Javier Solana, Chris Patten, and the Irish presidency of the EU that the United States defer to them on the "Greater Middle East Neighborhood" or "Broad Middle East Initiative" (BMI), in exchange for EU support for the USA's deepening Iraq extrication issues. It was agreed that the announcement of this support would be made to three major conferences in June, 2004: The G-8 Summit; the EU-USA summit; and the NATO summit. The announcements were made and statements issued by all three. The day after the NATO summit ended, June 29, 2004, the Council of the European Union voted to increase Javier Solana's responsibilities and remit. Solana also assumed the post of European Foreign Minister in advance of the new EU's constitution ratification.

Reactions to the conference

Both Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat had high praises for Javier Solana's coordination of the Barcelona Process. Both described the events of the Conference with high regard. Ehud Barak was quoted by covering press as saying they had beaten their swords into ploughshares. Barak also said that at long last Israel had joined the "European Club". Libya was not present at the Conference. Shortly before that process began, Muammar al-Qaddafi, Prime Minister of Libya, reportedly said to other Arab leaders: "What's the matter with you idiots? Can't you see this is a blatant European attempt to gain hegemony over our region?!" However, in 2000, both Qaddafi and his country joined the Conference and acknowledged the principles laid out in the Barcelona Process. There have been some charges by Jewish anti-terrorist watchdog groups that some Palestinian terrorism against Israeli targets may have been funded by hybrid governmental-private collaborations stemming from Barcelona. The Barcelona conference is now 9 years old. Javier Solana announced as of July 2004 that by its tenth birthday in November 2005, he believed true Middle East peace might be achieved.